Thorsten wrote:
Surely this is just a test and we will purchase SE after this. But its just a pilot scheme...so XE will do it.

If you are prototyping, developing and testing your application, and are planning for deployment on SE, then perhaps you could take a look at the OTN license for SE/EE (see the database downloads section - the terms, with "checkbox", is presented on the downloads page).

In general , you would test on "A" (SE) if the plan is to have the app running on "A" (SE).

We grant you a nonexclusive, nontransferable limited license to use the programs for: (a) purposes of developing, prototyping and running your applications for your own internal data processing operations

Well is this internal if we use external Data for our internal Applications (Apex)?

So our Service Provider told us to buy a specific Generic Hosting Licence. But this licence does not exist for oracle. It seems to be just for the Service Provider.

It don't think so. Note that there's a different in the procudtion license for SE and the OTN license... If you just refer to the hosting aspect, it's true however. You can't offer Oracle hosting for third party companies (and hence earn money with it) without having a proper hosting license.

So our Service Provider told us to buy a specific Generic Hosting Licence.

Of course they did. That's what their business model is based on - selling licenses and support contracts. However, that's what Oracle's business model is based on as well.

Well is this internal if we use external Data for our internal Applications (Apex)?

No. Basically the terms say if you sell something that is based on Oracle Database, you need proper licensing. XE is for your own internal data processing only, so you can't use it to provide productive applications or to process third party data.

So our Service Provider told us to buy a specific Generic Hosting Licence. But this licence does not exist for oracle. It seems to be just for the Service Provider.

As far as I know, you (or better your company) need to be Oracle Partner to be able to get that kind of License.

It seems Oracle will not give any more information of this topic.

That's what Oracle Partners / Service Providers are for. If you don't trust their judgement, you could of course ask another one. But I guess you'll get a similar answer.

Concerning your initial post:

There should be an agreement, a law etc. saying this is not allowed.

I think the License Agreement is pretty clear on what you are allowed to do with XE. As you've quoted, it operates on a positive approach: It lists everything you are allowed to do, implying that you are not allowed to do anything else ( nonexclusive, nontransferable limited license ).

So my Idea was to offer a XE Database with Hosting (which is surely 0€) because the Hosting needed just to be logged by the service vendor.

Well, you can't offer XE hosting.

We are currently a company of 3 employees. So we just dont have the money to buy a SE.

SE One list prices start at 900 $ for the license plus something around 200 $ for support if you use the minimum license (5 Name User Plus). Of course, this doesn't include hosting yet, but in my opinion this is a reasonable price considering the fact that you don't have XE restrictions concerning memory, CPU and disk usage, and you get access to patches, etc.

And our service vendor is just forwardung mails in which they quote oracle with terms even to the SE.

The SE is limited too. And in the same way. Its vor internal purposes.

You also mentioned that your vendor indicated you may need a hosting license. This would extend the SE license to allow third-party processing on your instance(s). Probably this won't be economic if you have just one customer to offer the hosting to...
Perhaps you have to adapt your development and deployment scenario to meet the license agreements to avoid hosting. For instance, you can develop your application(s) using an OTN-licensed database (all editions for free) as long as you don't use your customers data for it (there are some other restrictions, but you know these terms, so...). You can deploy these applications at your customer's site. Your customer needs a proper licensed database as target. I guess this could even be an XE instance, as long as your customer doesn't need more. This is, by the way, one of the intentions to offer XE - start small and then grow to some paid license.
Of course, you could also develop your applications remotely at your customer's site.

So if oracle wants to compete against open source Database it just makes sense to offer the XE for free even for external usage.

I'm not sure that Oracle aims for the Open Source database market with Oracle Database. But do you know who own MySQL these days? ;)

And they just cant say that I am not allowed to this because of a point which is even to the SE while saying it can be done with the SE.

That's no point to be discussed here...
Anyway, I don't think that's exactly what your vendor meant to say. Once more, I remind you of the hosting license mentioned earlier. But perhaps the description of your usage scenario you provided here wasn't precise enough, and what you are up to could actually be achieved without a hosting license. Perhaps it's also a matter of how you deploy your application...